The Shed is Now Seeking Proposals for the Third Edition of OPEN CALL

The Shed announced today that it is seeking proposals for new works across all disciplines for the third edition of Open Call, its large-scale commissioning program for early-career artists who live and work in New York City. Proposals are currently being accepted online at theshed.org/opencall with a submission deadline of February 21, 2022. Commissions from selected artists will be presented in summer 2023 and 2024.

The Shed's Open Call program supports NYC's diversity of emerging talent and showcases a wide, multiborough range of voices, lived experiences, and perspectives through new works across visual arts, theater, dance, music, performance, spoken word, literary arts, film, fashion, art and technology, social practice, and new media, as well as across multiple and new disciplines.

The Shed will support selected projects with a commissioning fee of up to $15,000 of producing stewardship per artist or collective as well as in-kind financial, artistic, and production support managed by The Shed.

"Driven by our civic mission, Open Call is The Shed's most powerful and impactful tool to provide much-needed direct financial support, new work opportunities, space, and visibility to the diverse range of emerging artists and creative communities throughout New York City's five boroughs," said Tamara McCaw, The Shed's Chief Civic Program Officer. "For the third iteration of this core institutional program, The Shed is excited to invite the next cohort of artists to imagine and realize new creative possibilities, realities, and futures."

"Open Call is a cornerstone of The Shed's commissioning program. By decentralizing the curatorial voice within the selection process, which challenges the gatekeeping tendencies common to arts institutions, Open Call realizes The Shed's civic mission to be truly of, by, and for New York City," said Emma Enderby, The Shed's Curator-at-Large. "Each year, the wide range of proposed work that is selected by our reviewers and panelists demonstrates the multitude of ways artists are working today in a variety of mediums, and addressing diverse subject matter."

As in the two previous iterations, participants for Open Call's third edition will be selected by more than 50 independent leaders across artistic fields, including artists, cultural programmers, curators, producers, academics, and members of The Shed's program team. The application review will take place in summer 2022, and selected artists will be announced later in 2022.

Open Call 2023 will be presented in summer 2023 and 2024 at The Shed on its outdoor Plaza, in a gallery as part of a group exhibition in 2023, and in The Griffin Theater in 2024. As in prior editions, tickets to Open Call will be offered free to the public. More information about applying to Open Call is available at theshed.org/opencall.

Open Call was launched in 2018 and renewed in 2020 in the face of the unprecedented humanitarian, social, and cultural crisis that the pandemic presented to the cultural sector and, in particular, to communities of color. For a list of the past 79 Open Call artists and more information about their commissions visit theshed.org/opencall.

Open Call is organized by Emma Enderby, Curator-at-Large; Tamara McCaw, Chief Civic Program Officer; and Solana Chehtman, Director of Civic Programs, with Adeze Wilford and Alessandra Gómez, Assistant Curators; Sarah Khalid Dhobhany, Assistant Producer of Public Programs; and Maggie MacTiernan, Director of Planning and Program Operations. The program was conceived by The Shed's Artistic Director and CEO Alex Poots, Tamara McCaw, Emma Enderby, and Senior Program Advisor Hans Ulrich Obrist.

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